Sony: PSP Go was an experiment in gaming trends

updated 06:15 pm EDT, Tue June 8, 2010

by MacNN Staff

Sony exec says PSP Go wasn't about sales

The PSP Go was an experiment to see where the mobile gaming industry was going, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe head Andrew House claimed on Tuesday. He justified the handheld to MCV as a way to "learn more about what the consumer wanted" rather than as a replacement for the original model. While House admitted the Go faced poor sales, he contended that the sales themselves didn't matter as much as the lessons learned.

"One of the reasons we launched PSP Go was to understand where that consumer behavior was going," he explained. "We were getting signals from consumers that this was the kind of device that they wanted. But we need to recognize that consumers like their packaged media library."

The Go is widely acknowledged as being Sony's answer to the iPod touch and iPhone, both of which depend solely on downloadable games to add to their collections. Much of its struggle in the market has been attributed not just to the inability to download games already purchased on UMD but incomplete or absent online releases. Its $250 price also put it well above the $200 or less regular PSP.

Sony is known to have lost mobile game revenue to Apple last year based both on its aging design and on the prices of the associated games. Whether a download or a UMD, new PSP games often cost $30 to $40, or at least four times more than a typical iPhone or iPod game. Titles for Apple's platform aren't often as complex but can be more technically advanced through newer hardware.

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must be nice to have so much money that you can misjudge your customers needs, completely fail on a product launch, and then say it was just an experiment.

I wonder how the few people who bought one of these feel now that they know they are paying to be Sony's guinea pig.

Funny how if you look back on these forums from when this product was announced, people were crying FAIL! How is that your average teenage living in their parents basement has more business sense then these assclowns that get paid millions of dollars to make these awful decisions.

Hey Sony, you want to COMPETE rather then EXPERIMENT? How bout this, merge your Walkman department with your gaming department to create one device that plays music, movies, and games thats simple to use. You have invested a lot in UMD, so its fine to put a disk reader on there, but give us descent storage space so we don't have to use if if we don't want to. Put a digital TV receiver on the thing so it can get mobile video and wifi too. You're a little far behind in the app category, so thats going to be tricky, but this doing less while costing more business you have been pushing on us, not gonna fly.

People aren't leaving PSP for iPod touch cuz of downloadable games. People want an iPod touch because it does almost everything and fits in your pocket. Its not just the games, its the web, the calendar, the music - EVERYTHING. It does more and costs less. pretty much a no-brainer.

First you can't make a phone call on PSP Go... already a let downer. Second, iPhone OS or iOS is a complex operating system that Sony lacks the experience in creating one. Microsoft will have a better chance if their Zune is ever becoming an XBOX GO. Microsoft, Apple, and Google have one thing in common, they are software and server specialists. And especially Apple which knows both software and hardware very well.

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